The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

11122009

Aluminum can recycling is big business in The Outer Sunset and no one takes it as seriously as the old Chinese ladies. Other people hop in their cars and drive their cans to the Safeway parking lot on Noriega for cash. The old Chinese ladies load up their carts, sometimes up to three times their body mass, and then push it on up the road. Hardcore.

This lady doesn’t have it too bad. She’s headed westbound on Moraga so it’s relatively downhill on a quiet road and the few uphill parts aren’t that steep. I love her hat to. Old people have rad, practical fashion accessories.

What’s nuts are the people that live down by the beach and push their carts uphill on Ortega. That hill kicks my ass just riding my bike up it, I can only imagine if I was 30 years older and pushing a cart three times my size up that hill on a regular basis.

There’s this one couple that I’ve watched do that for years now. They have to be in their 60s or 70s, yet a few times each month I’ll see them trek up Ortega street and the funny thing is that the wife always kicks her husband’s ass. She’s easily a block ahead of him by the time they get into the final stretch. They both definitely define what it means to have a serious work ethic.